Starving cancer to stop metastasis

Meet the scientist

Besides science, Dr Michaela Frye enjoys watching stand-up comedy and going to the theatre. She relaxes by going out for a nice dinner and reading one of her favourite authors - Paul Auster. 

The science

Metastasis remains one of the main reasons for cancer deaths. Once cancer has spread, only a very small number of patients can be successfully treated with conventional treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. There are still many unknowns about how metastasis works, but we know that to successfully colonise other organs, tumour cells must adapt to drastically different environments. The new environment that the tumour cells encounter once they break away from the original tumour, can have different levels of oxygen, energy sources and nutrients available. 

This extreme flexibility that tumour cells need during metastasis is largely provided by mitochondria – the “powerhouses” of the cell. Dr Frye and her team are now testing whether stopping mitochondria from providing the required energy to the tumour cells could open new ways to prevent or treat cancer metastasis.